Valentine Roses Get Dipped in Chemicals - AP

[Eugene]

Valentine Roses Get Dipped in Chemicals
By JOSHUA GOODMAN
Associated Press Writer

February 12, 2007, 9:04 AM EST

BOGOTA, Colombia -- It's probably the last thing most people think about when buying roses.
But by the time the velvety, vibrant-colored flowers reach a Valentine's Day buyer, they
will have been sprayed, rinsed and dipped in a battery of potentially lethal chemicals.

Most of the toxic assault takes place in the waterlogged savannah surrounding the capital
of Colombia, which has the world's second-largest cut-flower industry after the Netherlands,
producing 62 percent of all flowers sold in the United States.

With 110,000 employees -- many of them single mothers -- and annual exports of $1 billion,
the industry provides an important alternative to growing coca, source crop of the Andean
nation's better known illegal export: cocaine.

But these economic gains come at a cost to workers' health and Colombia's environment,
according to consumer advocates who complain of an over-reliance on chemical pesticides.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-colombia-toxic-flowers,0,3853310.story

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Thanks for the heads up. I didn't know about the poisons.

There are other uses for rose pedals such as potpourri or homemade rosewater or rose jelly which is served on bread.

[ThomCat]

2. Yet another reason why I don't buy roses

and rarely buy flowers at all.

I love flowers, but do we need to buy another out-of-season product that has to be preserved and shipped thousands of miles?